All Features
Dirk Dusharme
For more than 20 years, Toyota’s methods, known as “lean,” have made headlines. And that’s how long engineer, researcher, and author Mike Rother has been involved with the subject. Like many others, Rother began with Toyota’s production tools. And like many others, he found that these are…
Gene Rider
Approximately three-fourths of product safety recalls in the United States are the result of some design flaw in the product rather than a manufacturing or other defect. Most violations of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) “small parts” standard, for example, are the result of…
Criterion NDT
(Criterion NDT: Auburn, WA) -- Doctors, hospitals, and individuals depend on the highest quality hypodermic needles to administer medicines and draw fluids. Unfortunately, 100-percent visual and/or water-leak test inspection of the needle tubing or finished product for microscopic cracks or…
Sal Lucido
The compliance department’s primary function is to ensure that the company complies with all applicable regulations, rules, and laws. Regardless of the industry—life science, energy and utilities, or financial services—this is a universal mandate.
As someone who serves customers across many…
Jon Miller
In a recent e-mail, a reader of my blog asked me, “How can we enhance top management commitment and involvement for implementing total productive maintenance (TPM)?”
This is a great general question to ask during any effort to establish excellence, maintain excellence, or transform excellence…
Jon Padfield
On the evening of April 14, I boarded a plane to London, where I was scheduled to teach a series of continuous improvement classes. The following morning, as my flight neared the United Kingdom, the pilot announced that our flight was being diverted to Brussels due to a cloud of volcanic ash…
National Association for Healthcare Quality
The Toyota Production System and U.S. health care improvement share a long history. What lessons can health care leaders learn from Toyota’s recent production troubles? A few experts recently discussed this on WIHI, an audio program sponsored by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). Here…
Tripp Babbitt
I challenge myself each day to hear something different. Sometimes this is about education, liberals, conservatives, tree-huggers, or many other opinions and topics that counter my perspective. For me, this develops new perspectives on problems and issues that service organizations face, even if…
Michele DeMeo
A surgical technician prepares her back table for the next laparoscopic surgery. Instruments are removed from their containers and packages, and placed neatly on the back table. Chemical indicators show that sets and instruments are sterilized; the patient is prepped. The surgeon begins the…
Donald J. Wheeler
During the past 20 years it has become fashionable to condemn measurement processes that are less than perfect. Yet the reality is that we must always use imperfect data. Given this fact of life, how can we ever know if a measured item is or is not within the specifications? Put another way, how…
Stewart Anderson
I am often struck by a remark of W. Edwards Deming that the aim of a system must include plans for the future. As Deming wrote in The New Economics (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994), “A system must have an aim. Without an aim, there is no system. The aim of the system must be clear to…
Jack Healy
One of the more improbable business changes of our times has been caused by a number of corporations such as Walmart, General Motors, IBM, and others who have taken on the direct responsibility for improving the environment by ensuring that “sustainability” is implemented throughout their…
Stewart Anderson
I am often struck by a remark of W. Edwards Deming that the aim of a system must include plans for the future. As Deming wrote in The New Economics, “A system must have an aim. Without an aim, there is no system. The aim of the system must be clear to everyone in the system. The aim must include…
Raissa Carey
It took Gutzon Borglum 14 years to complete the carving of Mount Rushmore, one of the world’s most iconic monuments. Sixty-nine years later, thanks to ground-breaking 3-D laser scanning technology, the granite sculpture of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and…
(Academy Leadership Publishing: King of Prussia, PA) -- When news headlines trumpet story after story about fiscal mismanagement, unchecked greed, massive bankruptcies, and rampant downsizing, it’s hard to believe there’s any good news about the business world. Indeed, it’s almost impossible not…
In the classic Aesop fable, “The Fox and the Grapes,” a fox desires some grapes hanging high overhead. When he is unable to come up with a way to reach them, he convinces himself that the grapes are probably sour and therefore not desirable anyway. “Sour grapes” has become an idiomatic expression…
Some things never cease to amaze. We are meeting with the executive committee of a major global company, and we have just asked if innovation is one of their top strategic priorities. Their unanimous answer is “yes.” We then ask about their individual responsibilities. “Which one of you is the CFO…
R. Eric Reidenbach Ph.D.
Successful quality initiatives are based on understanding the true nature of “quality.” It resides in the minds of those who judge it and use it to make their purchase decisions—in other words, the market. Divorced from the market, quality or value has no real meaning. Uninformed definitions of…
Paul Leavoy
If analysts are correct, the recent economic downturn may be slowing and even changing direction. The recession's effect on operations, however, has barely begun to manifest. Training budgets are typically the hardest hit when economic times are tough or corporate purse strings are pulled more…
Davis Balestracci
Customer satisfaction data resulting in various quality indexes abound. The airline industry is particularly watched. The April 10 Quality Digest Daily had an article with the title "Study: Airline Performance Improves" and the subtitle "Better on-time performance, baggage handling, and customer…
Michael Raphael
There are many reasons why firms need to model the exterior contour of existing aircraft outer mold lines (OML). Most aircraft flying today were not designed in a modern 3-D CAD system. Even with a current 3-D digital design, the actual as-built contour deviates from the intended shape, at least…
Ron Rode
Yes, it’s time to get your game on—metrology game, that is. I invite you to join us in Reno, Nevada, where the Coordinate Metrology Society is in the final preparations for its 26th annual Coordinate Metrology Systems Conference (CMSC). This year’s conference, sure to be a landmark event, will be…
Tony Shaw
A woman in Southern California’s Inland Empire, age 53, is suffering from an unidentified neurological disorder. It started as an odd numbness in her left arm, and now she feels an uncomfortable, persistent tingling and prickling pain from the bottom of her feet to the top of her eyebrows. She…
GKS Global Services
I
n 2006, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) kicked off a project called the Vehicle Design Summit (VDS), which today has grown into a large international consortium of teams from universities and innovative companies seeking, among other pressing global needs dealing with energy and…
Bill Kalmar
A
s the school year is winding to a conclusion, scores of children are anxiously awaiting the beginning of their summer vacation. I suspect that there are also an equal number of teachers preparing to clean out their desks and use the next couple of months to unwind and re-energize.
The…